+aka Monkey Posted January 30, 2004 Share Posted January 30, 2004 I broke down and bought the serial cable for my 60C so I could use it (in conjunction with the Keyspan adapter) on my Mac for sending and receiving waypoints. The good news: It works. The bad news: The software available is meager. Here's what I've found: Link2GPS: Seems to be the best tool for basic uploading and downloading of waypoints. The biggest problems with it: It doesn't recognize all of the symbols available, particularly the one for geocaches, which is a bummer when using it with the 60C. The interface seem a little unintuitive, and most importantly, it doesn't support any of the commonly available GPS waypoint formats (GPX, LOC, etc). Terrabrowser: Very cool! I'm not sure how usable it is for me to see where I am on a satellite photo, but what a fun toy. As for uploading and downloading waypoints, it was giving me a message saying if I was to upload waypoints, it *might* overwrite all the existing ones. That's bad, and makes it unusable in my opinion. Apparently it's being re-written entirely in Cocoa, so we won't see any updates until the middle of this year at the earliest. GPSConnect: Appears to be a watered down version of Terrabrowser. Same concerns as above. Mac SimpleGPS: A few people have had luck with this, but I never get anything but errors when trying to send or receive waypoints. Since every other program worked fine, it must be a problem with the software. The author no longer responds to emails, so this program may be dead on the vine. A shame, as it really looked to me like the most promising of the bunch. MacGPSBabel: Doesn't seem to convert as many formats as the PC version, although I see no reason why not (it's just a GUI for a shell script). Although it offers support for sending and receiving directly to the GPS, it didn't work. MacGPS Pro, GPSy: Look like very robust programs, but complete overkill if you just want to send and receive waypoints easily, which is really all I want. But without shelling out for GPS Pro or GPSy, it looks as if I have no way of sending pocket queries to my GPS. Quote Link to comment
+JeremyA Posted January 30, 2004 Share Posted January 30, 2004 MacGPSBabel: Doesn't seem to convert as many formats as the PC version, although I see no reason why not (it's just a GUI for a shell script). Although it offers support for sending and receiving directly to the GPS, it didn't work. The latest beta of MacGPSBabel does everything (and possibly more) that the windows front-end will do. The upload/download from GPSr should work too, however there was a problem with keyspan adapters that I have now fixed but haven't got round to uploading to my website yet - it would have been nice if you had contacted me to let me know that it didn't work for you (that is the point of releasing beta software after all). JeremyA p.s. despite the warnings in Terrabrowser I have never had any problems with it's GPSr upload/download, and I find it by far the best solution available for this. Quote Link to comment
+JeremyA Posted January 31, 2004 Share Posted January 31, 2004 Beta 3.1 of MacGPSBabel is now on my website - all being well this version will work with keyspan usb-serial adapters. JeremyA Quote Link to comment
+planetrobert Posted January 31, 2004 Share Posted January 31, 2004 JeremyA, on osX there is MacCMconvert Got a Q about MacCMconvert. I for some horrid reason cant compile the unix comand line version of CMconvert and as I am guessing that you have done this with success would it be possible to get a copy of it from you or tips on making it work? Quote Link to comment
+aka Monkey Posted January 31, 2004 Author Share Posted January 31, 2004 The latest beta of MacGPSBabel does everything (and possibly more) that the windows front-end will do. Holy cow... HUGE improvement from the version I had before. The upload/download from GPSr should work too, however there was a problem with keyspan adapters that I have now fixed but haven't got round to uploading to my website yet - it would have been nice if you had contacted me to let me know that it didn't work for you (that is the point of releasing beta software after all). I apologize for not contacting you before. In all honesty, I forgot it was beta software when I posted my message. I did just try the new version, but I get the same error: open: No such file or directory [ERROR] SERIAL: Cannot open serial port [ERROR] Cannot access serial port GARMIN:Can't init /dev/tty.1 (1) Quote Link to comment
+JeremyA Posted January 31, 2004 Share Posted January 31, 2004 I did just try the new version, but I get the same error: open: No such file or directory [ERROR] SERIAL: Cannot open serial port [ERROR] Cannot access serial port GARMIN:Can't init /dev/tty.1 (1) Can you you do me a favour and check the 'About MacGPSBabel' and check that you managed to get version 1.0b3.1 The reason I ask is that my webserver is doing strange things to me (like serving older versions of the software that don't exist any more), and the error you get *should* be fixed in beta 3.1 (well it worked earlier today anyway). Jeremy Quote Link to comment
+JeremyA Posted January 31, 2004 Share Posted January 31, 2004 Got a Q about MacCMconvert. I for some horrid reason cant compile the unix comand line version of CMconvert and as I am guessing that you have done this with success would it be possible to get a copy of it from you or tips on making it work? Hey, why would you want to compile your own copy of cmconvert when you have my front-end Only joking. There is an easy way to get the UNIX version and a not-so-easy way. The easy way is to right-click (control-click) on the MacCMConvert icon and select 'show package contents' from the drop-down list. Navigate to the resources folder and you will find the UNIX version of cmconvert already compiled for you (by me). If you prefer you can install expat on your computer (either through fink or download it from sourceforge and compile it yourself). Optionally you can also download and install libzzip which will enable cmconvert to work with zipped pocket queries. Then cmconvert should build and install without any problems. JeremyA Quote Link to comment
+planetrobert Posted January 31, 2004 Share Posted January 31, 2004 thanks, i wanted the comand line version so that i could insert commands for it into my oneclick shell script your GUI is quite good tho Quote Link to comment
+aka Monkey Posted January 31, 2004 Author Share Posted January 31, 2004 Can you you do me a favour and check the 'About MacGPSBabel' and check that you managed to get version 1.0b3.1 It says it is v1.0.b3. Might this be the problem? Quote Link to comment
+JeremyA Posted January 31, 2004 Share Posted January 31, 2004 It says it is v1.0.b3. Might this be the problem? Yes, my ******** server isn't updating properly. Try clearing you cache in your web browser and downloading it again. If that doesn't get you to 1.0b3.1 email me (jeremy at jfatherton dot co dot uk) and I will send you a copy. JeremyA Quote Link to comment
+Nuwati Posted January 31, 2004 Share Posted January 31, 2004 National Geographic Topo is available for mac usage. Nuwati Quote Link to comment
+aka Monkey Posted January 31, 2004 Author Share Posted January 31, 2004 But will National Geographic Topo allow uploading and downloading of waypoints to the GPS? Still, I'm just looking for something fairly basic, preferably shareware. Quote Link to comment
+aka Monkey Posted January 31, 2004 Author Share Posted January 31, 2004 Yes, my ******** server isn't updating properly. Try clearing you cache in your web browser and downloading it again. If that doesn't get you to 1.0b3.1 email me (jeremy at jfatherton dot co dot uk) and I will send you a copy. I tried it again and got the new version, which worked fine with the LOC file. I was surprised to see that when I used it to upload the .loc file to my GPSr, that it converted the CDATA to the notes field on my 60C. My only problem is, a lot of caches the hider puts important info in the description, and I have no way of knowing whether I have all the info to find a cache without first looking them all up. It would be neat if Jeremy added a "30 character hint" field (yeah, right). Quote Link to comment
+JeremyA Posted January 31, 2004 Share Posted January 31, 2004 Is there any software, Mac or Windows, that does what you describe? As far as MacGPSBabel is concerned, it is intended solely as a GUI front-end for gpsbabel. As such I am just giving access to functions that are already available in gpsbabel. Going beyond the feature-set of gpsbabel is not my intention, so I'm afraid that uploading hints to your GPSr isn't going to happen. My GPSr isn't even capable of showing that sort of data, that's why I have CacheMate - it carries the descriptions, my GPSr gets me there. JeremyA Quote Link to comment
+TEAM DARROW Posted February 3, 2004 Share Posted February 3, 2004 Mac SimpleGPS: A few people have had luck with this, but I never get anything but errors when trying to send or receive waypoints. Since every other program worked fine, it must be a problem with the software Mac SimpleGPS works pretty well for me. But it did not work at all until I traded the no-name USB to serial cord I had, for the IOGear cable. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...227904?v=glance Quote Link to comment
robertlipe Posted February 3, 2004 Share Posted February 3, 2004 As part of some work for another format in GPSBabel, I have some thoughts on this topic. The reality is you can't categorically put everything you need to find a cache in 30 characters. The format in question has a total of 8K for short description, long description, and hint and even that isn't enough to get them all. The cache pages in HTML, a Jpeg, or i18n character sets still spank you. I find that having an icon set to cache type and putting the diff/terrain + full cache name in the 30 character description to be a reasonable start. I've done this for years with my Magellans, but never pursued it much with the Garmins since they never displayed the waypoint comment in any readily accessible place on the units I've fondled. If the newer Garmins DO make this available and you'd be willing to work with me to test improvements in this area (we can sneak custom GPSBabel's under MacGPSBabel) I'm open to that. Contact me on the list. Quote Link to comment
+aka Monkey Posted February 3, 2004 Author Share Posted February 3, 2004 Is there any software, Mac or Windows, that does what you describe? As far as MacGPSBabel is concerned, it is intended solely as a GUI front-end for gpsbabel. As such I am just giving access to functions that are already available in gpsbabel. Going beyond the feature-set of gpsbabel is not my intention, so I'm afraid that uploading hints to your GPSr isn't going to happen. My GPSr isn't even capable of showing that sort of data, that's why I have CacheMate - it carries the descriptions, my GPSr gets me there. JeremyA No, I don't think there is any software that does this (on the Mac at least). I don't think it can be done without some changes from Jeremy, to be honest. And since it seems only the newest Garmin GPS have this function, I see no reason why he would add it. It's just wishful thinking. I wasn't really suggesting you add it to MacGPSBabel... just voicing my opinion that it would be neat "if." Oh, wait, now I see the confusion... I meant Jeremy IRISH, not yourself. Sorry about that! Quote Link to comment
+Treasure Bandits Posted February 3, 2004 Share Posted February 3, 2004 Indiana Cojones, How did you compile that list? I wrote a program called Magellan Waypoint Manager, or MagWayMan, that is in a late-beta cycle, but it wasn't in your list. It's at: MagWayMan Did you only compile the list for Garmins? How did you search that list out? I'd like to list my program wherever you found that other information. It will add the Cache name plus the difficulty, and owner, if there's room, into the comment field, as compiled out of the .GPX files, along with alot of other features that I won't list here. If you're using a Garmin, it won't help you much. I think I need to know the right place to list it, since it NEVER gets mentioned in these lists. thanks! Craig Quote Link to comment
+aka Monkey Posted February 3, 2004 Author Share Posted February 3, 2004 I just went to VersionTracker and did a search for GPS. Getting on there should help your downloads significantly. Quote Link to comment
+JeremyA Posted February 3, 2004 Share Posted February 3, 2004 I meant Jeremy IRISH, not yourself. Aaaah, not THIS Jeremy but THAT Jeremy <light bulb goes on> It all makes sense now. Quote Link to comment
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